


under my skin

by cherrywines



Category: Minecraft (Video Game)
Genre: Friendship to Lovers, M/M, Oneshot, Summer, dnf brain rot, idk - Freeform, mutual pining maybe
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-15
Updated: 2021-02-15
Packaged: 2021-03-16 18:41:08
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,057
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29458398
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrywines/pseuds/cherrywines
Summary: “Can you please…” Dream said through gritted teeth, “just tell me how you really feel for once.”George had a lot of things to say, and yet as he sat there, he swallowed each and every one that threatened to spill out.“I… can’t.”
Relationships: Clay | Dream/GeorgeNotFound
Comments: 1
Kudos: 83





	under my skin

**Author's Note:**

> Literally don’t ask. I don’t know… dnf brain rot, I guess. :]

Dream and George had a tradition.

Every summer solstice they’d pack themselves a picnic, grab the red and white flannel blanket, and drive out to the beach where they’d watch the sunset.

They’d since drifted from the tradition, however. No longer the little boys they once were… no longer the friends they once were.

The both of them hitting a snag in the friendship before they went their separate ways to different colleges when Dream realized he had, somewhere along the way, caught feelings for George.

In a flurry of overwhelming emotions Dream had confessed it to him that day standing in the driveway, George all packed and ready to leave.

Dream remembered it all too well.

The three words had tumbled out of his mouth without warning- impulsive, encouraged by reckless red hot longing.

It was what followed that nearly killed him.

The sudden silence, the avoidance of eyes, the flushed cheeks, and then the “I… don’t feel that way about you.”

A ten year friendship down the drain, just like that… Just like that.

Dream and George, mostly Dream, did their best to maintain a friendship, though the conversation often faded out into nothing; the silence that was left in the space between, all too loud.

Dream used to find comfort in the silence… in their silence. It has always been something that was a sort of solace- warm and inviting. It was the aftermath of conversations that never bore any weight on their friendship- always light, borderline delicate.

Maybe that was the problem. Maybe Dream failed to realize that their friendship was simply a surface level thing. But he had inexplicably and unfortunately found himself wanting to be closer to George- on his skin, rather than under it.

After months of chasing a friendship that had reached its end, Dream stopped calling. He stopped texting. George did the same.

Though Dream knew in his heart if he hadn’t put in any effort at all, George wouldn’t have reached out to him.

It was hard for a while, seeing George live his best life at school, seeing him with his new friends, knowing they were getting to see a side of George Dream would never experience.

But the feelings faded, as they always did.

Out of sight out of mind, Dream buried himself in his school work, his efforts paying off at the end of the semester as he made top marks.

The pride from that, momentarily filling the sadness that still remained.

With the semester coming to a close, and with summer approaching, Dream felt a heaviness sneak up on him in those final weeks, that he knew was caused by his anxiety of returning back home and the slim chance he would run into George.

The weight of his worry settled uninvitingly on his shoulders bringing along a shadow of that longing he had tried so hard to ignore.

***

“So, are you excited to see Dream again?” George closed his eyes briefly and sighed, running his finger over the window that had warmed with condensation.

“Mhmm…” He leaned his head against the glass, cooling the heat that had risen up to his cheeks. Outside, the familiar scenery of farmland and rolling hills passed by with blurred velocity.

George had been thinking about Dream a lot recently.

He thought about how he had left things between them and the unsettling resolution of their friendship and the way he had just cut him off, like he was nothing.

Dream was something, though. He meant something to George… more than just something, actually. He had meant a lot to him, still did. But George didn’t know what else to do when he had dropped that on him.

 _I… don’t feel that way about you._ The words had rolled off his tongue so quickly he couldn’t take them back.

They were a lie.

George had felt something switch between them that last summer solstice they spent together. A type of comfort had enveloped them in a way that it never had before. To be frank, it scared George. A lot.

George was never the one to be vulnerable. Dream was the exact opposite.

George always knew what Dream was feeling as soon as he was feeling it. George had settled into a place of complacency with Dream in the way that Dream never really expected much to come from George.

But the one time… the one time Dream felt _that_ towards George, he decided to withhold it until it was too late.

If… if they were able to have a real conversation about it, maybe things would have turned out differently.

George wasn’t sure what he was feeling or if he even felt that way about Dream still.

A part of him hoped he wouldn’t have to find out. But a bigger part wished he would.

***

Dream’s cat meowed loudly upon his arrival. Dream placed his duffle bag on his bed to pet Patches who moved her head just out of his reach in response to his hand.

“Oh come on now…” Dream frowned reaching out to pet her again only to be met with a chorus of meows in protest.

“Still mad at me for leaving?” Dream sighed, “yeah I get it.”

Dream looked around at his room that was painted a sage green, his desk cluttered with things he had long since grown out of.

On his bedside table, a faded picture of him and George with his new car. Dream remembered that picture like it was yesterday. He missed it… missed them.

Dream sighed and pulled out his phone, his fingers wavering over the new message button next to George’s name. Instead, he chose to close the phone with a subtle _click_ , and laid back on his bed, the phone placed tightly against his chest.

“Fuck it.” Dream’s fingers typed out the two letters and hit send.

Not even seconds later, his phone buzzed, the screen illuminated with a picture of him and George. George was calling him.

“Hello?”

“Dream.”

Dream hadn’t realized how much he missed George until that moment. Hearing the way his name slipped off George’s tongue, though cautious, was still laced with sweet affection.

Dream had to take a breath.

“George.” It felt unfamiliar on his lips. He supposed that’s what happened when people hadn’t talked in months.

“Hi.” And then… “I’ve missed you.”

Dream felt his breath catch in the back of his throat. “I’ve missed you too.”

Silence.

The type of silence that felt like unexplored territory- the type of silence neither had experienced before, at least not with each other.

“I… there’s a lot I want to talk to you about.” George said after some time, the words coming out carefully.

“Yeah?”

“Yeah. Are you free right now?”

_Right now?_

“Yes.”

“Okay. See you in five.” George hung up immediately after, leaving Dream to listen to the monotonous dial tone.

The static line repeating itself with rigid intensity.

Dream felt like he was going to throw up.

Anxiety built up in his stomach, twisting and turning itself into a devil’s snare. He closed his eyes and took a deep breath, feeling the knot loosen slightly.

Okay. This was okay. This was good, actually. Dream rolled off his bed, and pulled a sweatshirt over his head, his phone buzzing in his pocket.

George: _I’m here._

Five fastest minutes of his life.

Dream took another deep breath, “Bye mom, I’m going out with George.”

“Okay, tell him I say hi.”

Dream reached for the doorknob, his hands shaking with nervous energy.

The silver Toyota, the one from the picture, sat in his driveway, steam coming out of the exhaust, headlights dimmed from worn usage.

In typical George fashion, the car shook from the bass of the music that he was always playing too loud. Dream felt himself smile.

The door handle to the car was cold and slick beneath his fingertips. One more breath in before he pulled it open.

“Hi Dream.” George’s voice had gotten deeper. Something Dream had failed to notice over the phone. He had also gotten taller, and his hair was longer… the brown strands rolling into subtle curls.

“Hi George.” Dream sat down in the passenger seat, clicking his seatbelt shut around him.

“The usual spot?” George turned to look at Dream, his dark brown eyes racing with unkempt energy. Dream nodded.

George clicked his tongue and pulled out of the driveway, turning the music up.

Dream looked out the window as they made their way to the spot- the typical landmarks that acted as points on a treasure map guiding the way to their spot, remained untouched.

Dream knew the route like the back of his hand. The comforting feeling of gravel beneath the tires signaled that they had reached their destination.

Dream let out a breath he hadn’t realized he had been holding as George took the key out of the ignition, the engine slowing to a low purr.

“Blanket’s behind you.” George said quietly, an uneasy smile spread across his face.

The semi-worn blanket that had become thin from age and consistent use, brought the years of coming to this exact spot, back to Dream. The fabric held no weight as he walked out to the patch of sand in front of them, the red and white squares draped over his shoulder.

The all too familiar smell of salt and fish hit them first. And then it was the sound of the waves.

The slow roll of water against the shore beat on breathlessly before them.

Dream laid the towel on the sand that had become semi-moist from the damp air and sat down. George soon followed his lead, sitting next to him, the gap between them filled with unbridled tension.

“I…” Dream and George started at the same time.

“You first.” Dream waved him on, his body shifted away from George’s.

George let out a low sigh, the kind that came from deep in the chest- heavy.

“I’m sorry.” Two words. The two words Dream had been waiting to hear for months. Two words that tumbled out in a single muttered breath.

“I didn’t want to leave you like that.” _But you did._ Dream wanted to say, but kept quiet.

“I wasn’t sure…what to say to you. You didn’t really give me any time to react.”

“But you did react,” Dream said softly, “you did and your reaction was that you didn’t feel the same way.”

“Well, I had to say something, didn’t I?” George turned to Dream at last, searching his face.

“I would have rather you said nothing.” Dream lowered his eyes to the sand where his fingers were tracing a circular pattern.

“You don’t mean that, Dream.” George let out a bitter laugh.“It would have killed you if I hadn’t said something and you know that.”

Dream traced the word killed in the sand and ran a line through it. “Was it the truth?”

George paused. And then, “No.”

Dream nodded, “Lying isn’t better than silence.”

“I didn’t… know exactly what I was feeling. Maybe at the time, I felt the same way, but I didn’t get a chance to come to terms with it.”

“At the time?” Dream felt his heart sink.

“Mhmm…”

And there it was. The sudden knowledge that Dream was not over George. Despite trying his hardest to bury them over the past year, the feelings of ever present longing for him remained.

“George.”

“Yes, Dream.”

“Why did you leave?” Dream’s heart ached, the words mirroring his pain. “I tried, you know, to keep the friendship.”

George fell silent, staring out into the darkness in front of them, looking as if he wanted it to swallow him whole. “I thought it would be easier for you to get over your feelings for me if we didn’t talk.”

“You mean it was easier for _you_ to leave so you didn’t have to deal with _me_. You don’t get to tell me how to heal, or tell me what was best for me.” The words swelled with pent up anger, red and hot.

“If that was what was best for _you_ , that is fine. But you do not get to tell me what was best for me.”

“I was scared.” George sighed again. “I was scared because we had been best friends for years. And everything always just worked between us, with no effort. I didn’t want that to change.”

“How…how do you feel about me now?” George asked after Dream didn’t respond, turning his body into Dream’s. He was laid out on his side, his elbow propped up, head in hand. Dream refused to look up.

“Dream…hey.” George held out his hand and placed it under Dream’s chin, lifting it so they were at equal eye level. His brown eyes pulsed with that same energy they had before.

“George.” And Dream knew George could feel it in his words and the way he said his name. Knew that he could tell his feelings hadn’t changed.

“You said… that you felt the same? You don’t feel it anymore?”

George’s eyes remained locked with Dream’s. He bit into his bottom lip as if stopping himself from speaking. “Silence is better than lying.”

Dream let out a puff of air that was backed with frustration and exhaustion.

George looked at Dream apologetically, “I’m not sure I _can_ feel the same way.”

“Why?”

“I don’t want to ruin our friendship.”

Dream let out a chuckle that was tainted with bitter resentment, “scared of ruining a friendship that was already ruined? Okay, George.”

Dream hoped the undertones of desperation were masked by the spiteness of his words, though the two were starting to look and sound the same.

“I feel like you’re not giving this a fair shot.”

“What is _this_? We haven’t talked in eight months, Dream, and you think we can just… pick up where we left off?”

 _We haven’t talked in eight months…_ The words spoken like it was a mutual thing and that Dream hadn’t been grasping for straws to keep George in his life.

“Can you please…” Dream said through gritted teeth, “just tell me how you really feel for _once_.”

George had a lot of things to say, and yet as he sat there, he swallowed each and every one that threatened to spill out.

“I… can’t.”

“Okay. Well then, I can’t do this. I can’t be your friend anymore if you still can’t tell me how you feel.” Dream rolled off the blanket and stood up, stretching his hands over his head. “I’m done.”

He left George on the blanket as he walked back to the car, his steps leaving imprints in the sand below.

George watched him get up, wanting nothing more than to reach out and pull him back to him.

The words he wanted to say sitting on the tip of his tongue, unspoken.

 _Shit_.

***

George was fighting off sleep as he let the conversation of the night settle. The words spoken from Dream bled into his skin.

Dream had given George every opportunity to say how he felt and he still couldn’t get himself to do it.

Perhaps it was fear of rejection, fear of being vulnerable, fear of the unknown. Perhaps it was all of the above.

George thought he could say, wanted to say, that he thought he still felt the same.

It burned him, burned his insides, the repressed longing he felt towards Dream.

It burned him with dissatisfied resolution.

It still scared the hell out of him, though. Feeling this way about his friend.

But he couldn’t get Dream out from under his skin, and he couldn’t ignore how he felt.

And so he thought about what Dream had said. _Can you please… just tell me how you really feel for once._

George clicked his bedside lamp on, the warm yellow light soon filling the room. The small hand on the clock was a millisecond past the big three.

The green call button glowed ominously on his screen, the pixelated screen too bright for George’s eyes.

George rubbed his eyes as the dial tone of the phone vibrated in his ear. He was sure Dream wouldn’t be awake but…

“Hello?” Dream’s voice was low and scratchy with tiredness, a yawn threatened to explode on the surface. The way he mumbled hello, an obvious indicator that George had woken him up.

“Hi. Sorry for waking you up.”

“Is something wrong?” Dream’s voice lifted with alert, the tiredness disappearing without a trace.

George felt himself smile, warmed by Dream’s concern and the knowledge that despite how they left things, at the end of the day, Dream would always be someone he could call.

“I just… couldn’t stop thinking about you.”

George heard Dream roll over and turn on his bedside light.

“Is that a good or bad thing?” Dream’s voice had gone soft.

“Good… I think.”

“Yeah?” The word came out prodding, teasing.

“Yeah.” He didn’t continue, though. Let the word hang in the air.

“George…” Dream sighed. “Is there something else you wanted?”

Fuzzy static filled the space.

“You.”

Over the past few hours George felt as though the words that were being spoken were all falling down a slippery slope- slipping too fast to catch or take back.

The words filled with feelings that had built up over the past eight months just spilling out, uncontained.

“Do you really mean that?” Dream’s voice lowered, lined with caution.

“I do.”

Dream let out a breath on the other end of the call. “Are you sure? You have to be sure, George.”

George knew he was. He was tired of ignoring the way his heart quickened and softened whenever he was with Dream. Tired of ignoring the comfort that Dream brought him- that sense of security and safety.

“I am.”

“Okay…” George could hear the smile on Dream’s face as the words came out slowly. “Okay. So what now?”

“I want to see you.”

“Okay, well I can pick you up tomorrow- ”

“No. Like right now.” George interrupted.

“George… it’s…” Dream’s voice trailed off followed by the shifting of weight and flipping of a comforter. George could hear Dream’s two feet land on the wooden floor, softly but supported with steadfast strength.

“I’ll be there in ten.”

George waited anxiously for the buzz of his phone against his chest, shutting his eyes briefly in an attempt to slow his breathing and calm his nerves.

His head felt fuzzy, like he was in a dream or something, floating, lifted in an in between place where his feet failed to remain grounded.

It was all very surreal.

The vibrations of the phone rattled him to his core, the heart he tried so hard to tame, revving up in a fierce gallup.

“George.” Dream had tired eyes, though nothing could ever dim the light behind the blue of his irises. So inviting, so captivating. George supposed blue was the warmest color.

“Dream.” George awkwardly waved him in, leading him to his bedroom, the same one they had spent so much time in, but what now seemed like a different life.

Dream grabbed Geoege’s wrist, not too forcibly, but hard enough to get George to turn on his heels, his body doing a complete 180 so he was face to face- or rather face to chest- with Dream.

“Hey…” Dream’s eyes wandered across George’s face which was lit with a warm desire, the pink hues dusted across the bridge of his nose and around the roundness of his cheeks.

“It’s just me, George.”

But it wasn’t. It wasn’t just the young boy that played football with him in the backyard, or the one who had nearly died falling off his bike, or the kid who always had two packs of fruit snacks in his lunch so George could have one.

It was a young man, radiant and beaming, who was standing before him now. The only memory of that past life seared into the skin through faint scarred redness.

“George?” Dream’s brows were scrunched, his lips set in a pout. He brushed his hand across George’s cheek and down to his chin.

George lifted his eyes, seeking out the blue, wanting to drown in it.

And then it was hands on face.

Lips on lips.

Cautious at first, but then needy and urgent as if the moment would pass, as if it was fleeting and they were chasing after it.

Dream’s breath was warm against George’s lips- pink and as sweet as strawberries.

“George.” Dream breathed.

George loved the taste of his name on Dream’s tongue.

He pulled back, and looked at Dream. Looked at the blues and greens swimming in his eyes, the sparkle of youth glimmering on the surface.

He traced his hand over the curve of his cheekbone, the shallowness of his cheek, under his jaw- wanting to feel everything.

Dream wrapped his arm around the small of George’s back, pulling him up and onto the bed. Then lifted his sweatshirt over his head, and laid next to George, wrapping his arms around him.

George tugged at the hem of Dream’s shirt, wanting to touch his skin… wanting to be as close to him as possible.

Dream let out a breathy laugh, a smile spread lazily across his face as he pulled the shirt over his head.

All the wants turned into needs- a need to feel him and taste him.

George’s hand found Dream’s chest immediately brushing over the lines of his abdomen, tough from his years of playing football in high school. Ran it down the nape of his neck to the v of his torso.

George felt Dream shiver beneath his fingertips.

“You know what I wanted to say earlier?” George asked quietly, eyes on Dream’s tanned skin. “When you asked me to tell you how I really felt?”

“Mhmm…” Dream mumbled, his voice dripping with sleepiness.

“I… I wanted to tell you that I wanted your name etched into my skin.” The words tumbled out with listless airiness.

“Oh?”

“Yeah… yeah.” George drew circles into the tops of Dream’s hand. “I want... I want you on my skin, in my skin...I want everyone to know I’m yours.”

Dream brushed back George’s hair, planting a kiss on his forehead.

“Mine, huh?”

George snuggled in closer to Dream though close would never be close enough. His head was placed under Dream’s chin, close to his chest and to his heart.

“Yours…” George moved his arm up around Dream’s torso, the palm of his hand up against his heart, feeling it pulse beneath his flesh.

George closed his eyes and fell asleep to the steady and shallow pumps of Dream’s life force.

***

June 20th.

The two were at their spot again.

The sun was low in the sky, though the 9:00 p.m time on Dream’s phone felt like a lie.

While time was moving the same as it always did, Dream wanted to spend every sun filled minute with George, knowing all the time in the world would never be enough with him.

Red and white checkered fabric beneath their skin, arms entangled in arms, they watched the sun dip lower and lower into the horizon, their own bodies melting into each other just the same.

That feeling of comfort enveloped them once more as it had a year prior, though this time both were brave enough to embrace it.

The sound of steady crashes of waves fell to the background as the brilliant orange transformed into a rich purple, the moon replacing the sun.

Little stars shone and glimmered in the night sky above, raining down on them in a dazzling display.

The ocean in front of them, deepening in color as to match it’s heavenly counterpart.

As above, so below.

Dream thought he had never felt such peace in his life.

“It really is something.” George said faintly, his head tilted towards the sky.

“Sure is…” Dream looked down at George, his pale skin illuminated in the moonlight, swathed in a youthful glow. _He_ sure was something.

The two sat there enjoying the presence of the other, an intangible lightness surrounding them as they bathed in each other’s comfort.

Clear eyes, clear hearts, clear minds.

Seeing the world, and each other, in a way they hadn’t before.


End file.
